


"Charms, by a Charming Witch"

by ionizable



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/F, there are fruit puns in here, this is entirely shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4296453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionizable/pseuds/ionizable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-- The title of Root's post-Hogwarts memoirs, probably.</p>
<p>Reese just really wishes they'd quit dragging him into whatever it is that's happening between his sister and his closest blowing-things-up-buddy. A brother can only put up with so much before it just starts getting awkward and weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Charms, by a Charming Witch"

**Author's Note:**

> original anon prompt (that i kinda played fast and loose with... oopsie):
>
>> Oh God I just got an idea! A Root/Shaw HP AU where Root is Hermione and Shaw is Ginny! Cute, nerdy (and a little obsessive) Root secretly in love with her bestfriend's sister who does what she want, when she want and doesn't care about anything else but quidditch! Even Finch as Harry, Reese as Ron and Fusco as Neville works!

 

_the not-so-golden trio_

 

It’s a common sight at Hogwarts, for Reese and Root and Finch to all be seen trailing after some professor or another, caught pulling shenanigans and subsequently led on their way to see their Head of House.

But even when they aren’t in trouble, they’ll always walk in that order:

First there’s Reese, with his tall, gangly limbs and unimpressed stare clearing the way through the crowded corridors. (If he says anything at all, it’s usually grunted so low that most people would automatically just move out of the way without actually hearing what he’d said.)

Then Root, the next tallest of the bunch, with her unruly brown curls popping into the face of anyone who doesn’t move out of her way quick enough. (“That was fun! Wasn’t it, boys? Oh, cheer up, Harold, we never really get into too much trouble. Also, I have something new with the bubble-making charm that I want to try out later tonight.”)

And finally, Finch – the most enigmatic of the bunch – always with his head down, trying not to attract attention but somehow always on the receiving end anyway. (“How did this happen? Why does this keep happening? Why do I let this h–”)

It’s rare to see the three of them walking shoulder-to-shoulder, because then that would require them to admit that they're all actually friends with one another. They’re all still steadfastly clinging onto the idea that they’re as thoroughly unimpressed by each other now as they were when they met on the train in first year.

Even when they sit together at meals, there's always a healthy amount of books separating each of them from one another. None of the books, of course, are Reese’s; mostly they belong to Finch, and are pored over by Root.

Once, a long time ago, Shaw asked her brother how the hell he’d managed to get trapped in a bathroom with a rampaging troll with the two absolute weirdest Gryffindors in his year, and why the hell that meant the three of them needed to start hanging out and just generally accidentally causing destruction everywhere they went after that.

Reese remembers the following pointed stare over in Root’s direction, and the unimpressed look Shaw gave him when he pointed out that things just happen to blow up a lot around Root, and he happens to like being around things that blow up.

He missed the way Shaw’s eyes lingered on Root, afterwards, though, or the way the two of them stared at each other after Root looked up from her books.

If you were to ask him now if he wonders if that could have been the precise moment when one of his closest not-friends decided to start obsessively following his little sister around, he’d just cough and try to change the subject.

Which means yes.

 

* * *

 

_flying lessons: no available times_

 

Root never used to tag along to any of Reese’s quidditch training sessions. She really always preferred staying in, taking advantage of the way Finch’s unofficial role as the Gryffindor strategist frequently kept him out on the stands and away from his private (“ _private_ ,” he’d hissed once) library.

But then one day Root takes her nose out of her _Creative Charms: Tricks and Treachery_ book long enough to overhear one of Finch and Reese’s quidditch-related discussions, and just barely catches Shaw’s name being mentioned.

And that’s how Root ends up tagging along and freezing next to Finch on the stands, thumbing through her notes to find the best drying/warming/portable sunlight charm she can find.

She watches Shaw and Reese fly amok all over the field, and wonders if she should revise her ignore-everything-coming-out-of-the-boys’-mouths-related-to-quidditch policy. She also wonders just how many years it’s been with Shaw on the team, without her noticing.

Come to think of it, it did take her about two years to even learn that Reese _had_ an adopted sister, which at the time had been a boring, banal piece of information Root hadn’t paid attention to. But now she watches Shaw loop circles around her very obviously frustrated team captain, and sh—

And she’s horrified to realize that she’s been watching Shaw with a _smile_ on her face for the past fifteen minutes, but more importantly, Finch is watching _her_.

Later that day, Root just lifts one brow in response to Reese’s curious, “So why were you out with us on the pitch today?”

And Root (wisely, she realizes later) avoids Finch’s knowing gaze and manages to refrain from asking about Reese’s surly-looking, stare-holding, stupidly-attractive sister.

It takes about two and a half months of sitting there in the cold, listening to the _scrtch_ -ing sounds of Finch’s quill on his parchment as he works out the team’s strengths and weaknesses, before Root finally makes eye contact with Shaw again.

It goes just about the way she’d imagined it would -- they’re staring at each other, separated by half a quidditch pitch and fifty feet of air over wet, muddy grass, both silently daring the other to look away first.

Root never imagined, however, that Shaw would actually _fly over_ to talk to her, and she thinks maybe her months-long, unblinking stare hadn’t been going unnoticed by Shaw, after all.

She doesn’t know how she feels about that yet.

Their first conversation goes something like this:

“You don’t even know how to fly.”

“Excuse me?”

Root doesn’t exactly _appreciate_ being reminded that flying was the only class she didn’t receive top marks in.

And also, how did Shaw _know_? She’s a year below them, and Root hadn’t even gone near a broom since first year, which would have been before Shaw had even ever step foot at Hogwarts, so the only way she could have heard about that disastrous attempt back in first year would have had to been…

Root’s gaze falls on Reese, who’s eyeing them suspiciously from the corner of the pitch.

She makes a mental note to leave him a special _gift_ the next time she sneaks up to the boys’ dorms to steal one of Finch’s books.

“Why are you here? Are you spying on us?”

“I’m just here to read my book,” Root sniffs, holding up the textbook she’d barely even glanced at once Shaw had walked onto the pitch in her quidditch robes.

“Charms?” Shaw asks skeptically. “You seemed more like the dungeon-dwelling potions type.”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Root returns, fully aware of the way Shaw’s gaze seems to be meandering down Root’s robes and back up again. She tries not to let those nine words reverberate around in her mind, followed by _she’s been thinking about what you’re like_. (And maybe also _!!!_ is trying to reverberate as well.)

“Don’t you?”

Root doesn’t know what to make of Shaw. She _is_ quite abrupt. Reese’s offhand “not a people person” remark, the most he’d ever really said about his sister, had clearly been vastly understated.

So Root settles back onto familiar territory, instead, and shines her brightest, most winsome smile up at Shaw and turns the conversation back to safe, relatively impersonal grounds. “I know that it’s fitting that I’m the best at Charms in my year. I _am_ rather charming. And you are…?”

“Bored,” Shaw says, looking back out at the pitch to see if anything interesting was about to happen. She leaves one last parting jab. “Go read your book somewhere else, quidditch pitches are for people who know how to fly.”

So Reese really has been gabbing away like a schoolgirl.

No, not like a schoolgirl, like _Fusco_.

Root stifles a frown, and also the urge to aim an _incendio_ over in Reese’s direction, as Shaw flies away.

 

* * *

 

_no talking allowed_

 

Reese gets creeped out by the library, so Finch has taken to studying with him in the common room. Gryffindor just can’t afford to let another quidditch player flunk out right now, not in the middle of the season.

So Root’s usually left to her own devices in the stacks, but at some point – she couldn’t tell you when, exactly – Shaw started turning up at _her_ table, sitting in _her_ spot, staying there unflinchingly, even when Root makes it a point to drop her heavy books even more heavily onto the table.

As the weeks go by, Root finds herself arguing (hissing, really, an under-the-breath type exchange whenever the librarian isn’t looking) with Shaw more than she’s ever argued with anyone in her life. It’s just not worth the trouble, is Root’s usual policy, and she usually prefers coming up with cruel and unusual combinations of various charms whenever anyone is silly enough to cross her.

Without fail, almost every day that Shaw somehow manages to beat her to the table, they quietly bicker over little things, like how much space Root really needs under the table for her long, lovely (Root’s word), stick-like (Shaw’s word) legs.

They only get kicked out of the library once:

“Arithmancy is literally just Divination,” Shaw snorts.

“And Defence Against the Dark Arts is like the wizarding equivalent of P.E. So on-the-nose. So obvious. So… _unsubtle_ ,” Root returns, stretching out her legs and brushing up against Shaw’s, under the table.

Shaw kicks her.

“Arithmancy is beautiful. Delicate. Precisely artistic,” Root continues, unperturbed. “Numbers are _wonderful_. They’re the _future_ , but you have to know how to handle them, how to manipulate them. They have _power_ —”

“You sound like you’re about to worship the bloody numbers,” Shaw says, rolling her eyes.

And that’s the moment. Root stares at Shaw, at her tiny annoying face, and for the first time since Shaw had flown over her head and summarily greeted and dismissed her faster than she knew how to react to any of it, Root starts smiling at Shaw.

Shaw scowls, suspicious. “What?”

Root’s grin grows wider, and she leans forward and whispers, “You should see what else I can get passionate about.”

Shaw’s face doesn’t change a bit, but the tone of her voice gets decidedly drier. “Well now my imagination is just running places.”

“Somewhere interesting, I hope,” Root says, sliding her finger delicately along the edge of Shaw’s book, back and forth.

They’re staring at each other, again, but this time Root’s drinking it all in with a smile, almost heady with satisfaction at finally having figured out what it _is_ about this grumpy, stubborn, _gorgeous_ pain in the ass that gets in her head and just never leaves.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about… what you’d look like,” Shaw says, licking her lips as she replies, and Root feels a faint shiver running up her spine at the sight. Fucking _lush_ , is what she is, and Root can only guess that what she’s feeling must be _giddiness_ as Shaw leans in over the table.

She waits until Root leans in too, to meet her halfway, then finishes, “…With bat bogeys flying right out of your nose.”

Smugly slamming her book shut at the startled (but pleased) look on Root’s face – far louder than the breathing-level noise allowed in the library – Shaw gets up to leave, but turns and finds herself face-to-face with one very apoplectic-looking librarian.

That pleased look doesn’t leave Root’s face, even as they’re practically run out of the library and told they wouldn’t be allowed back.

 

* * *

 

_about as subtle as a bat bogey hex_

 

“No, Root,” Reese says, around a piece of toast in his mouth, “I don’t know where she is at all times. We beat each other up at practice and then that’s it.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Root pouts, but quickly sits up straighter when she sees a familiar little black ponytail making its way down the Great Hall.

“Why’d you want to know, anyway?” Reese asks, after a moment. He shares a _look_ with Finch.

Root ignores them. Lately Reese has gotten that suspicious tone in his voice more often, especially when discussing Shaw. Root makes a mental note to try to steal all his money soon to keep him occupied so he doesn’t have time to ask her any strange questions.

Shaw walks right past Root without a second glance, and Root turns to watch her go.

“My sister,” Reese says, washing down his toast with some milk and watching Root out of the corner of his eye, “She doesn’t really care about much other than quidditch. Just so you know.”

“Mhm,” Root replies absently, still watching Shaw walk down the rows of— “What?”

Reese raises his eyebrows at her, as they get up and start walking to Transfiguration. He can practically hear the gears turning in Root’s head as she tries to think of how to respond.

He gets it. It’s awkward for him too. Literally the last thing he wants to ever talk about is his sister with—

“John, have you been drinking the pickled newt juice by accident again?” Root’s voice sounds deceptively airy, and she glares down at Finch, daring him to say something completely unnecessary as well.

They walk in silence after that, only punctuated by a brief, “What was that, Harry?” and a little tap to slide Finch’s glasses down his nose, when he clears his throat and appears to want to say something pertaining to Root or Shaw or Root and Shaw.

It’s not till they’re on the third moving staircase that Finch relaxes a little and looks around and asks, “Where did she go?”

Reese shrugs, having noticed Root slip away almost as soon as they’d gotten to the second floor. “I don’t want to know.”

It’s just as well. He definitely wouldn’t want to know about how every morning after that (for about four mornings), Root sneaks into the kitchens before breakfast and gets the house elves to let her cast a few charms on the fruits being sent up to Shaw.

She starts with a small, cursive “You’re the _?_ of my eye”:

Shaw barely even glances at it, before taking a large bite out of the “?” part of the apple.

The next one is trickier; Root spends nearly an hour in the kitchens the night before, practicing to get “I think you’re _?_ ” just right:

Root’s never seen anyone eat an entire bunch of grapes as quickly as Shaw manages to pluck each grape off its branch and practically hurl them into her mouth, with barely a second glance.

Then Root tries, “You and I would make a stunning _?_ ”:

And the pear gets similarly viciously bitten into, but this time Root’s gratified to see Shaw shake her head a little bit as she reads it first, before rolling her eyes and devouring it almost violently.

The very last one Root tries (she’s running out of quirky things to engrave, and also beginning to miss some of the reading time she’s given up to puzzle these out in the kitchens every night) is “You leave me s _?_ less”:

And finally, with this one, Shaw looks up from the fruit and directly at Root. Taking a big bite of the peach, Shaw finishes chewing, swallows, then mouths something at Root down the table:

“If only.”

Root can’t help the delighted grin that spreads across her face, but quickly looks down at her (till now, very neglected) open textbook when Finch and Reese sit down across from her.

If she’s smiling at quite possibly the dullest section of her Care of Magical Creatures extra readings book ( _Sheep Husbandry, Horse Herds, and the Use of Porlocks_ ) in a strange and frightening way, neither of the two boys mention it.

 

* * *

 

_the long-suffering brother/best friend_

 

Not that Root had ever had much subtlety to begin with, but Reese soon begins missing the days when Root _wasn’t_ blatantly following Shaw around everywhere she went.

He figures it’s just another part of their weird relationship that he doesn’t want to know about, but of course, that would have made his life too easy.

“What are you doing here?” ( _Here_ being the quidditch changing rooms, and _you_ being Root.)

Reese feels like maybe he should say something, as he watches Root weave through startled semi-clothed quidditch players, but what good would it do?

Shaw pokes her head through her quidditch robes, takes one look at Root sitting in front of her, then properly pulls them over her head in one quick, frustrated motion.

“John,” Shaw calls, ignoring Root’s coy little wave. “John, why is your weird friend always hanging around me?”

Reese thinks maybe the two of them are always hanging around each other, but, “I don’t want to get involved.”

“ _John_ ,” Shaw says.

Reese recognizes that tone of voice. It’s the same one he’d heard right before she’d unleashed the mother of all boil hexes on him, after he’d accidentally eaten the last piece of cake she’d been saving for herself.

“Really, John,” Root purrs, but her eyes are still fixed on Shaw and it’s clear she isn’t really talking to him, “I think it sounds like she’s practically _begging_ you to—”

Root stops abruptly, cut off by Shaw’s wand having crept up to her throat.

“Trust me,” Shaw says, “When I beg… you won’t _think_. You’ll know it.”

Reese, and the rest of the team, have all opted to try to make a speedy and quiet exit. One small second year, though, clearly not having learned how to properly modulate his voice yet, mutters, “Can’t they have their lovers’ spat somewhere else?”

“We’re not _lo_ —”

Shaw stops, then stares down at her empty wand hand.

She turns to face Root.

Root’s smugly dangling Shaw’s wand from her fingers. “Nonverbal disarming spell. You’ll learn them when you’re our age, sweetie.”

Reese grabs the second year by the scruff of his robes and drags him out before Shaw can make up her mind as to which of the two she’d like to maim and/or kill first.

Rather useless, he decides, as he catches Root’s silly-looking attempt at a wink at Shaw, who’s slowly advancing closer and closer and pinning Root against the wall.

Shaw was always going to go for Root first.

 

* * *

 

_seriously very long-suffering_

 

Case in point, he thinks, less than a week later, as his sister slides onto his dining hall bench and just _looks_ at him.

“Well?” she asks, propping her arm up on the table. Her fingers tap a steady, agitated rhythm on a knife, which Reese thinks is probably unintentional and not a coded message (read: veiled threat) she’s trying to send.

“What?” he asks back, grabbing one of the last chicken legs before Shaw sees them.

“Where is she?” Shaw grits out, clearly trying to sound casual about it.

He shares an amused glance with Finch and thinks a bit before replying. Shaw’s hand is still nearly gripping a knife, after all.

“You mean Root?”

“No shit, Sherlock, you got any other girls dumb enough to hang around your stupid a— Hi, Carter.”

“Shaw,” Carter says, looking amused at the tail end of the conversation she’d caught, but she slides down the bench a little to give them some space and starts asking Finch a few questions about Herbology.

Zoe Morgan walks past at that moment, smiling at Reese. He nods a little, watching her go, very much enjoying the grinding of teeth he can hear coming from Shaw’s direction.

“You were saying?” he says, a little smugly, once Zoe’s disappeared from sight.

Shaw rolls her eyes and makes to get up and leave. “Bite me.”

Less than five minutes after Shaw leaves, presumably to walk around the castle aimlessly in hopes of accidentally running into Root, the devil herself appears.

“We were just talking about you,” Finch volunteers. He shoots a sly look at Reese, who grumbles into his mug a little. It’s one thing to tease his sister, but he’s still looking for those last 20 galleons Root stole from him for god-knows-why-this-time.

“Were you?” Root hums, sounding mostly unconcerned. She settles onto the bench and opens her book.

“Well, Shaw was, anyway,” Finch says. He smiles blandly at Root’s sudden, sharp glance upwards.

Reese concentrates on his baked potato. He doesn’t want to watch Root’s gaze go suddenly calculating, or the look on Finch’s face suddenly smack of “oh dear, perhaps I didn’t think this through.”

“Harry,” Root coos, sliding into the seat Carter had vacated shortly after Shaw had left. “My _friend_.”

Reese tamps down a sudden shudder, and from the alarmed look on his face, Finch had probably just experienced something very similar.

“Try the kitchens,” Reese grunts, taking pity on the little strategist perched on the bench across from him. Besides, the team needs him for their next game against Ravenclaw.

Root looks pointedly at all the food still on the table, then back to Reese.

“Not right now,” Reese says, helping himself to some more food, of which it seems there’s more than normal at the table tonight. “She skipped dinner. Probably looking for you.”

Root’s up and practically flying out of the hall within the next few seconds, and Reese sighs.

Finch shrugs, as though he knows exactly what Reese must be thinking right now. “At least you can eat your dinner in peace for now.”

“But at what cost,” Reese grumbles, thinking miserably about what might happen if those two actually do start spending more time together.

With him. Also there sometimes. In the middle. Although, he hopes, hopefully just in a metaphorical sense and not in a—

He sighs again, more heavily, and decides to help himself to more food, while he can.

Shaw may have skipped dinner to go looking for Root tonight, but she’ll be back with a vengeance tomorrow, probably. And then Reese might not get to eat _anything_ before it lands on Shaw’s plate, ever again.

He sighs _again_. He feels like he might be doing a lot of that in the coming future.


End file.
